December 25 ...

In 800 AD Charlemagne was crowned first Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III. In 1066 William the Conqueror was crowned king of England. In 1646 Sir Isaac Newton was born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, England. In 1776 Gen. George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, NJ. In 1818 Silent Night was performed for the first time, at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Austria. In 1868 President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War. In 1883 painter Maurice Utrillo was born in Paris, France. In 1894 the University of Chicago became the first Midwestern football team to play on the west coast. The Maroons defeated Stanford, 24-4, in Palo Alto, CA. In 1899 Humphrey Bogart was born in New York City. In 1914 during World War I, British and German troops observed an unofficial truce, even playing soccer together on the Western Front. In 1918 Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was born in Mit Abu Al-Kum, Al-Minufiyah, Egypt. In 1926 Hirohito became the emperor of Japan after the death of his father, Emperor Taisho. In 1937 Arturo Toscanini conducted the first broadcast of Symphony of the Air over NBC radio. In 1939 Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was read on CBS radio for the first time. In 1941 Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese. In 1946 W.C. Fields died at the age of 66; also on this day, musician Jimmy Buffett was born in Pascagoula, MS. In 1962 the Department of Commerce Census Clock in Washington, DC, recorded the US population on this day as 188,000,000. In 1989 ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad following a popular uprising; also on this day, dissident playwright Vaclav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia. In 1990 computer scientists Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau created the world's first hyperlinked webpage. In 1991 Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation as leader of a Communist superpower that had already gone out of existence.